Ok Mbunge, the following is a very arrogant, ignorant statement, completely loaded with uneducated, unfounded assumptions about someone you've never met and know absolutely nothing about:
"And that's why you'll never be a coach, GM or any sort of leader in any field of life. You don't want to work. You don't want to compete. You want to rig the game to make it easy for yourself. You want to take a shortcut".
In short, to reply to the insult - I've actually been "asked" to lead at every corporation I've ever worked at and built up a $20 Million dollar per year company from scratch - putting in the 18 hour days. I started working at nine years old, 40 hours a week planting in the fields 8 hours a day for a buck an hour - I understand "work" very well indeed.
As far as competing, I was the type of player you didn't want to tangle with on the court - I didn't care how big you were either -completely irrelevant to me. People who know me best say I'm the most ridiculously competitive person they've ever met. Everything's a competition to me.
So, now that we've gotten your ridiculously inappropriate and inaccurate insult out of the way, I'll address your reply - and monitors, please don't lock the thread - I'm just answering MBunge's insult.
In a corporation would it be a good investment for me to invest much time, training, energy and resources into a group of guys under my employ who I am pretty well convinced will absolutely not be with my company in the next 6 months - or should I invest all my resources into guys I feel absolutely "will be" with me in six months.
Why on earth would I invest in guys who have no future with my organization.
After the Rondo & Green trades and then Sullinger getting injured, we had a great chance to play and develop primarily our young guys and probably, as a result, end up with a top five pick as a result.
Instead I've got guys like Marcus Thornton and Tayshaun Prince - guys who were never wearing Green again after this season - coming off the bench to drop 20 on teams.
I've got Brandon Bass, who I am completely and fully aware of his talents, taking minutes from Olynyk, Sullinger, Jerebko and Zeller. I know what Bass can do and I probably want to resign him as a vet presence this off season. But right now I need long hard looks at my young guys to know exactly if they "do or don't" fit long term.
The combination of those three players (Bass, Thornton & Prince) probably won us an extra 5-10 games this season - that number is probably the difference between me getting a Karl Towns level talent or a Bobby Portis / Kaminsky level talent moving forward. I'd like to take my chances with the Karl Towns level talent.
This same principle applied last year where we had vets who weren't going to be here long term, grinding out meaningless wins that moved us "just" out of range of acquiring a Wiggins level talent versus a Marcus Smart level talent.
I would have played:
Olynyk, Zeller, Sulllinger, Crowder, Turner, Young, Smart, Bradley, Pressey, Jerebko, Datome, etc., the Lion's share of minutes - period.
It's not "rigging the game" it's understanding the war. It's not take a shortcut, it's making the "smart cut".
I don't need to see Bass, Prince and Thornton play - I need a transcendent talent.
And don't kid yourself, some of the very best GM's ever have made roster moves to put themselves in lottery position to get that transcendent player. You don't think Jerry West was tanking when he basically gave away half his Lakers team on lopsided trades to put himself "in position" to get Shaq? It's the same thing.
Except in our case I wouldn't even call it tanking -that's what Philly is clearly doing. For us it wold simply be playing solely our young, talented group of players. If they got us into the playoff I'd be happy as a pig in mud.
But I am not happy, by any stretch of the imagination that guys like Bass, Prince and Thornton may well be the reason we are ultimately looking at the 17th versus a top five pick in this year's draft - completely asinine.